


Only Ghosts

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anxiety?, Depression, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:58:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sherlock got back from his weeks in Karchi, John berated him for disappearing without explanation for so long. After a row, John stormed out to go have a drink with Lestrade and probably crash on his couch, leaving Sherlock to 'think about what he's done'. And Sherlock thinks. Oh boy does Sherlock think.</p>
<p>Third person present tense. </p>
<p>Triggers in the tags.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>'He thinks he might want to scream, but knows it will only result in Mrs Hudson coming up to check on him. She mustn’t. He’s in front of the lounge. He looks back. The doors are open. He should probably fix that. He goes back and closes them, clicking the lock in the kitchen and the lounge room. (Family room? No. No family.) (Living room? No. Only ghosts here.)'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Ghosts

There is a plastic coin bag in his pocket. The tiny weight of it makes him think of how things are a bit not good. (A bit not good? What is wrong with him?) He doesn’t try to ignore it as he walks up the last of the stairs, creaking in old, reliable ways. They are steady under his feet. He almost doesn’t want to leave them. Instead, he focuses on the cocaine in his pocket. He tries to turn its promise from a lead weight into a buoying tug. He’d have been successful, if not for John’s voice in his head.

 ‘ _Why are you doing this to yourself, Sherlock? You do know I’m not going to thank you for this, don’t you?’_

He knows. Of course he knows. He doesn’t care. Not anymore. (He tells himself.) (He lies to himself.) (One day he might even convince himself to try believing it.) “I don’t care.” He says it to the empty room. Lounge room. Wasn’t he on the stairs? He looks back. The stairs are still there. He must have entered the room while John’s voice was berating him. He thinks he said it out loud, but can’t remember. He says it again, to be sure. “I don’t care anymore, John.” The empty flat swallows his words and it doesn’t alleviate the almost painful stretch of his chest, the constriction of his ribcage.

 He thinks he might want to scream, but knows it will only result in Mrs Hudson coming up to check on him. She mustn’t. He’s in front of the lounge. He looks back. The doors are open. He should probably fix that. He goes back and closes them, clicking the lock in the kitchen and the lounge room. (Family room? No. No family.) (Living room? No. Only ghosts here.)

 He’s still wearing his coat. Takes it off (the scarf, too). He thinks about hanging it up, but he’s back in front of the lounge and can’t seem to bring himself to walk back to the door and hang it. John’s still speaking to him.

  _‘You keep putting it off and putting it off. Do you even want to do this? Think about it, Sherlock. Think about what you’re doing.’_

“No,” he says numbly. He doesn’t think he knows what he’s denying. His desire to lose himself, or John’s insistence he reconsider his actions. He doesn’t let himself wonder too much, because if he does, he might realise how bad of an idea this is.

  _‘You remember what I said, before that Baskerville case, don’t you? You remember why I made you quit like that.’_

He sheds his jacket, letting the expensive (Italian) material crumple into a pile on his Belstaff and scarf. He kicks his shoes under the coffee table as he seats himself on the lounge. “I remember,” he says quietly. He thinks about glancing up at the empty room, but doesn’t dare. He knows he won’t see John and the thought makes his stomach flip and everything feel _wrong._ He swallows past the guilt caught in his throat and digs through his pockets. He clears a surface on the table bumping against his knees and arranges the contents across it.

 One (1) wallet, German leather. One (1) driver’s licence, his own face glaring up at him with his unruly hair pulled back. Two (2) fifty pound notes, the remainder from his deal. Three (3) ounces of powdered cocaine, held in a plastic coin bag.

  _‘Putting it in a list won’t make in any less stupid.’_

Sherlock decides to ignore him. Instead, he pulls the bag towards him and tugs open the snap lock, carefully shaking it out onto the table. Empty, he replaces the bag in the line-up and takes his licence, using the edge to ensure the powder is fine enough for him to insufflate, ordering it into careful lines. His mind rebels against the muscle memory of his hands, the way they carefully and precisely do just what needs to be done. The way they remember. He doesn’t want to remember. He never wants to remember the (many) times he was driven to this.

 Quite the contrary – he wants to forget.

  _‘You’re not about to snort cocaine straight off the coffee table, Sherlock. We both know that. And you don’t have a straw.’_

“You’re grasping at them,” Sherlock retorts quietly. His tone is a direct contrast to what he thinks. He feels as though he’s lost in his own mind. Floundering. He needs to find a way to make it all _shut up_ because that damned argument was still going through his head.

 It wasn’t meant to be like this. He hadn’t intending things to be like this. In fact, he hadn’t intended many things. And yet, they had happened. Strange how the world works, sometimes. He replaces his licence. He takes one of the fifties and rolls it, thinks about all the ways this could go wrong.

  _‘You could get Hep-C from that,’_ John says to him, something like disgust lacing his tone. _‘Or syphilis. Do you really want to end up a brainless idiot? Because that’s what’s happening here.’_ Sherlock had been one word away from hearing that tone directed at him.

 He’d decided he’d rather hear disappointment than disgust. Anything but disgust. He regards the rolled up note in his hand with distaste. Who is to say John won’t be disgusted when he finds out? Who is to say John will find out? He’s far more likely to spend the night drunk on Lestrade’s sofa than come home and find Sherlock high on his. If all things go as they are likely to, Sherlock will be ragged but lucid by the time John comes home bleary and headachy and all evidence supporting claims to the way he spent his night would have disappeared. (From both the coffee table and his system.) (Hopefully.)

  _‘God, Sherlock, don’t do this. You really don’t want to do this. I don’t want you to.’_

There are six lines. He starts with two, because he wants to make sure there’s enough to last him the entirety of the night. He presses one end of the makeshift straw against the coffee table and the other slightly in his (right) nostril. Quick and sharp and trying to make sure he doesn’t get any stuck in his nose, he inhales, blocking the other nostril with his thumb as the cocaine is sucked into his system.

 The other follows soon after and he sits with his elbows resting on his knees, holding his nose between thumb and forefinger as he waits for the drug to kick in.

If any tears prick against his squinted eyes, it’s from the sharp sting of the powder being sucked roughly past his sinuses and certainly has nothing at all to do with the dwindling probability of John coming home that night.

**Author's Note:**

> A second part may or may not be uploaded. I'll leave this as unfinished in case I do decide to update.


End file.
